It's not much of a trade-off in practice - at worst, you just use it until it fails. I think most units don't fail throughout their life, and people still get new ones (too often because "old computer started to be broken & too slow" aka just filled with crapware*)

I disagree: my 10 year old desktop PC is still going quite well (except for blue screen from time to time, don't know if this is a HW or SW issue) whereas I know someone who had a laptop which failed just after the end of the warranty.

So? "I have" / "I know someone" is not only a poor input vs. overall trends (how people don't seem to hold on to working machines often enough), you also essentially reaffirm my very own assertion that, yes, it's not something you can plan around much (please, please, drop the confirmation bias of "they don't build them like they used to" - we just remember positive specimens better, the few still working doubly so), so at worst, you just use it until it fails.